


The Coolest Little Capital

by groovymoonshoes



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groovymoonshoes/pseuds/groovymoonshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stop #35 of the Klaine Road Trip 2015, aka the final destination on their trip around the globe. </p>
<p>Kurt and Blaine spend a day cramming in as much of Wellington, New Zealand, as they manage, sampling as much of the uniquely Kiwi  culture as they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coolest Little Capital

Blaine almost cries when he and Kurt find themselves standing in front of a giant dragon in Wellington International Airport. [Smaug](http://nerdapproved.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1B2C0346-LR.jpg) is completely out of the way of the luggage collection and every single sign towards their bags points in a totally different direction from it; it’s really just a complete fluke that they had overheard some children with full Kiwi accents talking about their excitement to see the dragon from  _The Hobbit_  as they departed the plane. It turns out that the giant [Gollum](https://www.wetanz.com/assets/Uploads/finallrg.jpg) they walked past already wasn’t enough for the fanboy, much to Kurt’s fond exasperation.

There are a few kids around the dragon, all far more focused on touching the figure more than anything else. After reading a sign that let them know it was completely okay to get up close and personal with him, Blaine does exactly that, much like the kids. “Kurt,” he says, turning back to where his husband is standing with both their carry-on bags, “can you take a picture?” Kurt lowers his phone. He absolutely under no circumstances was possibly already taking pictures of his husband and how adorably excited he was.

“Of course,” Kurt says, and waits for Blaine to pose in front of Smaug, taking a few steps back to get as much of the dragon into the frame as possible. Blaine bounces happily over to examine the pictures, collecting his bag from the floor.

“Sam is going to be so jealous,” he says with a grin. “Do you remember where the baggage claim actually is, or?”

***

Kurt snuggles up against Blaine in the back of the taxi. “Can’t we just go to the hotel now?” he whines. He doesn’t understand why Blaine has so much energy or where it came from. Traveling is exhausting. Blaine shakes his head.

“Nuh-uh. We’re going to Weta Workshop and then I won’t talk about  _The Lord of the Rings_ or  _The Hobbit_  for the rest of the trip, I promise,” he assures his husband, “We’ll be there soon. That’s why we’re going now.”

Blaine had checked Google Maps on his phone in Auckland airport before their domestic flight to Wellington. Kurt had agreed that it seemed silly to go all the way into the city just to come all the way back out to Mirimar, the suburb close to the airport which is home to the Weta Cave.

They hadn’t booked a tour, but Blaine doesn’t mind that as he wanders around the shop. He stops himself from buying anything, as though  _anything_  is in his budget after international travel, but he feels just as at home as ever.

***

They make it to the hotel before 11am, one of the biggest pros of having had such an early flight down from Auckland. They can’t formally check in until the afternoon, but they leave their bags, freeing them up to get going with their day.

“So we’re going to the museum?” Blaine asks. He had dragged Kurt to Weta, so it is fairly enough his turn to choose after all.

Kurt pulls his jacket a little tighter around himself. It’s winter in New Zealand, and they _are_  walking around the waterfront. The harbour is beautiful even for such a cloudy day. “Yeah,” he affirms, “Te Papa Tongarewa?” Kurt gives his best shot at pronouncing, with no real idea about if he’s even close, having never needed to encounter Maori words in his life, “it’s that building there.”

The foyer is in itself kind of empty, obviously ushering them up the stairs before they get to any information kiosk, but even for a weekday there are plenty of people around. There are a few pre-schoolers and their parents standing around a [ball](http://colinspics.org/newzealand/wellington/wellingtontepapa/wellingtontepapa2.JPG), all with their sleeves rolled up to keep them from getting too wet as they try to change the direction of it. Blaine very quickly beelines towards it, getting right into it alongside them. The kids are delighted that someone has the strength to push it where they want it to go, and Blaine perks up immediately after playing with the kids. Kurt feels like he’s done a lot of babysitting that day already. Blaine was lucky that he loved him so much.

 “Is this your first time here?” the girl at the information desk asks them as they collect maps.

“Yeah, what do you think we should see?” Blaine replies, well aware that they can’t fit everything in with the time they have, “we’ve never been to New Zealand before,” he adds.

“Are you doing a marae stay or anything while you’re here?” she is met with blank looks. “Okay, so that’s where you should go. Mountain to Sea and Awesome Forces will always be here for you to come back to,” she says gesturing to the entrances on the floor, “so animals there, and the earthquake house there. But if you want to do the typically Kiwi things, head up to level 4 and go to Mana Whenua and the marae. When you first get up there, go straight to Golden Days and book your seats, though. Trust me.”

***

“New World,” Kurt muses, as they make their way into the supermarket, “because that’s not an exaggeration or anything.” Blaine shrugs. They grab a basket each, the shopping in mind to match their planning to have a picnic dinner that night in the botanic gardens.

“I’m pretty sure supermarkets are a universal experience.” But oh, how wrong they were. They don’t make it out of the fruit and vegetables before they run into a Pikachu, and unicorn, and a dinosaur, heatedly debating how many carrots they need. “Kurt?” Blaine tugs on his husband’s sleeve to get his attention, lowering his voice, “why isn’t anyone surprised by that?”

Kurt doesn’t know what to say. Teenagers in sleepwear, even onesies, isn’t something he had ever come across in public before. He certainly hadn’t ever ventured from the house in pyjamas (and filming a commercial for a mattress store did not count). “I take it back. This  _is_  a New World.” Even for the supermarket being so close to city centre, no one other than them seems at all surprised by these people, nor does anyone seem to question a distinct lack of footwear. It’s winter, and yet they spot barefoot people, and, perhaps only one step better, people in flip flops (or “jandals” as they so charmingly call them). Having just come from the beach themselves (which they learnt was mostly imported sand, as though having a beach in almost the city centre wasn’t strange enough) they knew for sure that they hadn’t all been there just before.

“I’m cold just looking at these people,” Blaine notes, putting a bag of Pineapple Lumps into his basket. Kurt hums in agreement.

***

“Wellington isn’t a big city, is it?” Blaine muses, as they walk the short distance from the waterfront to the cable car. Google Maps had told them that it took about as long to walk through the city as it did to walk around the harbour, and it had been obvious which made the better walk. In the late afternoon the harbour is all the more beautiful, the clouds having lifted, even when they were fighting against the current of business people going home.

“I think it’s just mostly suburban,” Kurt replies. The fact it only took them twenty minutes to walk this far along the length of the CBD wasn’t lost on either of them. “And the sanctuary is in a suburb, right?” Blaine nods.

“I think technically the botanic gardens are in a suburb too?” Kurt shrugs. Navigating the suburb divides in a city they’re visiting isn’t exactly something worth dwelling on.

The cable car itself isn’t anything new and exciting; it’s not as iconic as the San Francisco cars, but it gets them exactly where they need to go. A handful of university students hop off halfway up as they approached the campus, but it’s obvious that the cable car isn’t nearly the most popular means of traveling. They get off at the top, and head around to the lookout hand in hand.

“I never get sick of it,” a man says to a woman near them, “I’ve lived here all my life, and this is still my favourite [view.](https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/snapper-website-content/Newsroom/Wellington+Cable+Car+website+image.jpg)”

“It’s the coolest little capital,” the woman says, and the man laughs, “ _so_ overused,” she emphasises. Neither of them really get what the couple is talking about, as they communicate when Kurt quirks an eyebrow at Blaine. He shrugs in response.

“It is pretty great,” Blaine says, squeezing Kurt’s hand.

“We’ve seen so many cities, so many skylines, but New York is home, you know?” Kurt replies with a dreamy sigh.

“Yeah, I know.”

“We’ve had a good run, but I think we’re due for a staycation soon.” Blaine grins.

“I can’t wait to stay in and scrapbook everything with you. Make notes about our favourite coffee shops and restaurants all over the world, our favourite skylines, and our must see locations from everywhere we’ve been. It might take a bit of work, but it’s going to be so worth it.”

“People aren’t going to believe us when we say we’re this well-travelled,” Kurt says, nudging Blaine in the side. He giggles, shaking his head lightly. They head off through the botanic gardens hand in hand, in search of a spot to sit.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it? How you can be in the city in one minute and in a place like this the next. There’s no one here,” Kurt says.

“Yeah,” Blaine agrees, “there were all those business people on the waterfront, but it doesn’t seem like people use this like a shortcut.”

They know that it’s still really early for dinner, but they have a night tour to be getting to, so they make quick work of their picnic before walking right to the other side of the gardens from where they came in (both glad that they ended up walking downhill most of the way) and out the main entrance gates. The public transport system gets them easily to their bus stop, and they need only walk a short way to the wildlife sanctuary.

“Okay, who’s on this night tour?” a tour guide says, and they go and join the circle that is being formed. “Tēnā koutou katoa, my name is Harry and this is Sophia, and we’re both volunteers here at Zealandia. Because there are quite a few of you, half will go with Sophia, and I’ll take the other half. Before we head into the valley, I’d just like to remind you that we try to do everything we can to make sure that we aren’t disturbing the wildlife. Please don’t use your own torches or phones, we will give you a red light torch each, and remember just to keep your voice down when we’re out there. In a minute we will ask you to self-check your bag in case you have anything in there. It sounds silly, but we really can’t even chance bringing mice and rats into the sanctuary, so it’s best just to make sure, you know?”

Kurt and Blaine end up going with Sophia, a girl who looks to be in about her early twenties. They collect a flashlight each, and check their bags at the station provided before going through the gates.

“The fence!” Sophia says excitedly (though quietly) to the group, “Essentially it needed to be built to keep out all the major threats, not just to the native wildlife but the native trees and plants, too. Stoats, cats, possums, rats, and mice were identified, and then a fence that kept them  _all_  out needed to be made. So things like jumping height, climbing ability, burrowing, and size of the animals were figured out, and then the fence was made to combat those. So that’s why it’s the height it is, and why there’s a cap on it, and the fence actually goes down into the ground to stop burrowing. Things like ease of installation and maintenance were taken into account too, and just general Wellington conditions. You guys don’t really seem like you want all the exacts, but there’s an infographic a little way up you can look at.”

They walk on further, the next stop at a reasonably average looking tree, though there are hinges in the side of it. “This is one of our [weta motels](http://maxa.maf.govt.nz/sff/about-projects/search/C08-039/image-01.jpg). With any luck…” Sophia opens the door, revealing two halves covered by acrylic, with huge bugs inside. “Make sure everyone gets to see the weta, folks,” she says with a grin.

Kurt and Blaine walk up to the tree and look at them. “ _This_ is what the film company named themselves after?” Blaine says. He squeezes Kurt’s hand extra tight. The weta are some of the biggest insects he has ever seen in his life; if not  _the_ biggest.

“They’re not exactly pretty, are they?” Kurt says, “Okay, I’m done looking at insects, let’s move away and let someone else see.” The others in the group aren’t as shocked as they are.

 “You two are American, right?” Sophia asks them as they step away from the tree. Was it really that obvious? Having clearly heard them talk, their accents were a giveaway, but Kurt suspects that there was more there from her asking.

“Yeah, we live in New York,” Kurt responds.

“You can tell you aren’t kiwis. You were surprised to see weta. Most of these guys will have had one in their gumboot before.”

“Do they always get that big?” Blaine asks, his skin crawling.

“They can get bigger than that. We mostly get tree weta in the motels, but there are also giant weta out there. You can imagine. We’ll probably see some cave weta in the mine.”

Once everyone has happily seen the weta, which as Sophia pointed out was the least scary way to see them up close, they continued on through the valley. “This is my favourite part of the whole sanctuary,” she says, “This is the [tuatara](http://www.wildlifeextra.com/resources/listimg/nz/karori_tuatara3@body2.JPG) nursery. I think they’re adorable.”

In several glass tanks are exhibits, each holding tiny lizards. “They are pretty cute,” Blaine says to Kurt.

“Small doesn’t equal cute,” Kurt reminds, though the tuatara  _are_  quite cute. Blaine nudges him with his elbow.

“Hey, what are you implying about small people?”

“ _You_  are cute. Happy?” Blaine nods, grinning at Kurt.

Eventually they walk on far enough to get to the mine, like Sophia promised. “I’ll take you in smaller groups, because there isn’t heaps of room in there. We will probably see some cave weta, and there should be some glow worms too. If anyone wants to talk about the history of the gold mine we can do that in a bit, but let’s just go in, huh?”

As the pair enter the mine with the group, Kurt wraps his arms around Blaine’s chest, walking pressed close to him. He ducks more than he needs to, paranoid that he will brush a weta or something on the walls. “There’s a really big weta up here!” Sophia says, perhaps more excitedly than she would ever need to be.

“Blaine? Do you want to just get out of here?” Kurt asks, and Blaine nods. They walk back out of the mine quickly, Kurt unwilling to fully straighten his posture until they’re a good few metres clear of the entrance. “Okay, that’s enough weta for me for a lifetime,” Kurt says.

“I guess you’ll never watch any of the  _Lord of the Rings_ movies with me ever then, will you?” Blaine teases.

Of course, there was one thing everyone who wanted to the night tour really went in for; in hopes of seeing a kiwi. Sophia checked the time and the group decided that they didn’t want to walk too much further into the valley, so she only took them a short way in. “Okay, I’ve just checked, there is a kiwi in this burrow here,” she says, and the group cycles round so everyone can see the bird in the burrow. “It’s a shame he hasn’t come out for us, but you can all at least say you’ve seen one now, yeah?” There’s a scuffling from the bushes a little way up. Sophia gestures to them all to be really quiet, and she sneaks over, turning back to the group to nod excitedly. “Red light only,” she reminds them, and points her flashlight at the bird as he walks out from the bushes and crosses the path right in front of them, before disappearing again. “Right, yeah, so that was a [little spotted kiwi,](http://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/sites/all/files/120050apd-20110110-S0294.jpg) which are slowly gaining their numbers back after being significantly threatened by mammals. That’s why we have the fence though, luckily. They’re breeding pretty well in here.”

The walk back out to the visitor centre is pleasant, just Blaine and Kurt walking hand in hand through the dark. “Thank you so much,” Blaine says to Sophia as they approach the gate.

“You’re welcome! Did you two have a good time?” she replies.

“We did,” Kurt says, “but I’m not upset that there aren’t wetas in our apartment.”

“There aren’t weta in my flat either, thanks,” Sophia says with a laugh, “maybe my garage. Most of them are pretty harmless, and well, the reactions of people like you make it all worthwhile.” They call a taxi, neither of them keen to work out which buses will get them across town to the hotel, and finally make it into their room. They had only spent a short time there in the afternoon to get their bags in place.

***

Blaine stands by the window, admiring their harbour view. Kurt comes up behind him and wraps his arms around him, resting his chin on his husband’s shoulder. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kurt says, “I am _very_ tired, but it’s nice.”

“Do you want to take a bath to warm up?” Blaine suggests. Kurt hums in agreement.

“That sounds wonderful. And then we can get desserts from room service, and…. Then it’s time for bed. I’m exhausted.”

“You’ve been tired since we landed this morning and we’ve had a big day. You deserve to have a good night’s sleep.”

“With you?” Kurt says, “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was so thrilled to be able to be part of this! There were a few little liberties taken that I'm not even going to specify, but for the most part all of this is completely genuine. I went so far as choosing which hotel they were staying at, and I checked most things against websites for as much accuracy as possible, though these really are all places I go to (read: past) all the time. Eep, go read everything in order.


End file.
